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Mary -Louise Parker in movie Young Washington 2026 as Washington's mother Mary Ball. Here she talks to Marc Myers of the WSJ about her childhood growing up as an Army officer's daughter in different bases before settling down in Arizona. Her fight with shyness till she over compensated. Her father's confidence in her and pointing to her the prospect of going to the North Carolina Institute of Arts, where she learnt the craft of acting. She moved to New York for different roles including one in "Weeds."  She is 61 years, and lives with 2 sons 19 years and 22 years, in a large apartment in Brooklyn that overlooks the water with views of sunsets which she enjoys. It was Mary Ball who told her son not to join the British Navy, wanting to keep him in America. Washington joined the British forces in North America after a career as a surveyor. Land and landholdings were important at the time and as a surveyor with important connections to prominent British families Washington built his career, and further enhanced it by joining the British forces against Indian raids and the French in the coveted Ohio territory. Where did Washington get his keen knowledge of history and the Enlightenment thinkers that enabled him to grasp the ideas of Jefferson? Washington was like the first Chief Justice Marshall in the same communities at the time in the Virginia colony. Both were mentored by a major British landowner who built a large library in the colony that both were able to go to and learn what they later used to start the struggle for a new Nation. It shows the importance of books and libraries, of knowledge during the Enlightenment period in shaping the minds of the Nation's founding fathers- Jefferson, Marshall, Washington, Madison, Samuel Adams and others. ...

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 Iranian drone attacks and French British interception efforts - a report from the French armed forces staff about shortages in munitions. Drone attacks by Iran in first 2 weeks of Iran war are as follows- 590 on Qatar and Kuwait, 500 and 550 on Saudi and Israel, 1700 on UAE. A flood of low cost Shahed drones intended to overwhelm defenses is used by Iran. Drones can be launched from all parts of Iran including from the countryside in a country 3 times the size of France. The drones also cost little to produce in large numbers in Iran. Munitions cost and cost of aircraft usage, other costs of Navy, run to $12.7 billion for the US and US asks for another $200 billion from Congress. France uses 24 Rafale jets Britain 8 Typhoon jets in this report from French armed forces and French munitions supplies are an issue as the war progresses. France uses MICA missiles for interception made at a factory in Bourges central France, with limited supply.

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This article in the Atlantic Council September 17, 2024, shows that the world may be fixating on the Straits of Hormuz when it should really be focusing on the Red Sea shipping for the Suez Canal. The Iranians ship 1.5 million barrels a day of oil through the Straits of Hormuz, and closing it off would close off the oil revenues that sustain its economy. Wald writes that even if the Iranians in a crisis would clsoe off its waters to shipping another route exists in the Straits of Hormuz through UAE waters when needed by oil shipping and it has been used by British ships. The Red Sea and Suez presents risks coming from Houthi rebels supported by Iran, who have attacked the US Navy ships in the region.

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Bihar unemployment and West Bengal unemployment of 3-5% a fake number as the jobs counted include unstable temporary poorly paid work. Quality Jobs are only 10% of the workforce. These figures disguise huge problems. In Bihar and West Bengal youth unemployment is high and many youth simply leave the state for states in the western part of the country such as Gujarat and Maharashtra looking for work. In West Bengal the situation is particularly dire as the state government has blocked foreign investment and it is not an investment friendly environment. In addition the idea of a cut or a fee for everything and services, encouraged by the state government, leads to an entrenched climate of corruption that keeps out investment in industry and in infrastructure. The lack of cooperation with the federal government at the West Bengal state level leads to people in the state not having access to federal programs for housing, healthcare and water, sanitation. None of this shown in the media. When the media inside India and in the US or EU covers India, it fails to even give this importance. Probably because of the huge ignorance about India, its history and struggle for industrialization and modernization for the last 50 years. It is similar to the huge ignorance in America and Europe and inside China itself during the years of Japanese occupation of China in the 1930's, and through the efforts for industrialization in the 1960's and 1980's. A BBC article on fish is an example of this shown alongside this article on Bihar (and West Bengal). Both states were part of British Bengal, which is where the British based their Empire after the British East India Company secured rights to the revenues of Bihar and West Bengal by the 1780's, that had been take earlier by the Moghuls during their invasions from Afghanistan and Iran. This was the beginning of the destruction of West Bengal's economic structures in the way it happened in China by the 1850's with the Treaty Ports secured by the same East India Company of the British merchant Navy. The process of unwinding of this enterprise goes on today even 75 years after 1950 against the roadblocks to industrialization and modernization in India set by native corrupt state administrations. ...

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The navy of the U.S., Japan, India and Australia to join the annual Malabar exercize in the Indian Ocean. The British Navy played a critical part in the Mediterranean, the Cape around Africa, and the Indian Ocean, during the period 1750-1950, and the Indian Navy now inherits this role from the British period.

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A project that started when he was 29 before Michael Byard left Britain for Australia to work for a shipping company, is renewed years later when Byard is 74 years and finished when he is 80. Byard built a complete 5 foot replica of Admiral Nelson's flagship HMS Victory from 3000 pieces all intricately put together. The Royal Navy has preserved the HMS Victory as the only surviving ship from the period of the Napoleonic war 1803-1815. Nelson used the flagship to command the British Navy during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Read Roger Knight's "Victory" for the story of the British Navy during the period that spans the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic War between 1793 and 1815, when the Royal Navy established British influence throughout the Mediterranean and in Asia and Africa. 

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Prince Philip's career in the Royal Navy is remembered here in The Times. His service off the cost of Greece, at Gibraltar, and off the coast of Sumatra, on British Navy ships is recalled. Here he is seen saving airmen in the seas in the war against Japan near Sumatra, and in attacks on Italian cruisers after Italy invaded Greece. During this period till 1947 Philip served in the Royal Navy. When asked about any "if only" he had in a BBC interview, Philip once said there were none, except one about his career in the Royal Navy. Here he was following his uncle Lord Mountbatten. During his service in the war he leaned some things in the Navy that became part of his personality, the way he was, his style so to speak.  This was about being matter of fact, just doing it, never complaining, getting on with it. Philip was on the HMS Whelp on September 2, 1945, when the Japanese surrendered. He saw British seamen then who had been prisoners for many years, returning from camps. He recalls seeing tears stream down their cheeks as they sat with him in the mess on the ship and recognized the familiar environment, they could'nt speak. Shaped by these experiences Prince Philip reflected the values of devotion to duty, humility, respect for women, and feeling humbled by life's experiences. The experience in the Navy shaped his view of life. When asked about how he coped with wartime dead and wounded he once said - "we did'nt have counsellors rushing around every time someone let off a gun. You just got on with it." Seen out of context his remarks during the last few decades seemed blunt, seen in the context of the Navy and his formative experience in the ships in these years it was just the way it was. Simply who he was, as he once replied. With it also came the kind of dedication to country, being the "rock" of support that he was for Queen Elizabeth over many decades, and his unique style, now cherished by his family, the country and the British Commonwealth.   ...

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Mead on Greenland and DJT at Davos- he says in WSJ that Europe and US have a lot in common. From the way the media handled it it played right into Mette Frederiksen of Denmark's effort to portray the US in a colonial light when the colonial power on record is Denmark which followed the British, the Dutch and the Spanish in setting up colonial empires, but just failed to compete and sold off its colonies one by one to the US or traded it for territory. Denmark has along dispute with Germany on Schlewig-Holstein. Germany's Merz avoided the rhetoric and his foreign minister Wadephul emphasized importance of Greenland for security of Europe and indirectly of the eastern seaboard of the US. Germany and Italy meet Feb 12 and both coungries will work with the US. Britain's Starmer joined the Nordic countries in protest with its own colonial record providing some of the darkest hours for China during the Opium Wars. Farage and Conservatives see Greenland would be best in US control for US and European security. This means much of Europe is still with the US on the Greenland issue though misrepresentations of the US position by Denmark and many Democrats continue because of a certain inveterate opposition to DJT, with no mention of Admiral Robert Peary's discoveries in north of Greenland in the 1890's (for US Navy), and Democrat Harry Truman's offer of $100 million for Greenland in 1947, going back to Secretary of State Seward's effort to add Greenland to the Alaska Purchase in 1867. ...

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Oxfam agency does a study to show the extent of damage done by colonialism in Asia-taking one of three examples India, China and Indonesia with population today of about 3 billion people. British colonial rule in India-from the 1750's to 1950,  estimate is about $34 trillion. It is important because Gandhi's Hind Swaraj (1910) is the result of work done by Dadabhai Naoroji in Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901) in coming up with an estimate in the $trillions that showed Gandhi "the extent of the poverty of India." Gandhi's famous letter to the Viceroy in 1923 comes from looking at the British budget for India where little is invested in Indian development much of it going to policing India. An average of $650- $750 per capita income in1600 for both Britain, Netherlands and India, China and Indonesia diverges to $100 in India, China and Indonesia and $10,000 in Britain in 1947. The Dutch and Britain had financed their industrial Revolution that generated most of this prosperity using funds squeezed from taxation, seizure of provincial treasuries,  and unfair trade in India by the British and Dutch East India Companies from 1750 to 1940.  What made this possible is the advance of science and technology that gives the British Navy and the smaller Dutch Navy the edge beginning in the 1600's and maintained for two hundred years to 1800's to defeat the French Navy. And with a leap forward in the Industrial Revolution propelled by science and technology to maintain this edge against all newcomers till 1920's when the US and Japanese Navies contended for superiority. In 1588 the British Navy under Queen Elizabeth had more 400 ton ships and bigger ship guns than the Spanish Empire's Navy under Phillip the Second that dominated Spain, Italy and Germany, and Latin America. This was the turning point the year 1588, when the Spanish Armada was destroyed by the English Navy and by storms in the English Channel. A new book "Armada" by English historians Martin and Parker (2023) shows this as a turning point from which the British and the Dutch started after defeating Spain. There are questions about what led to attitudes towards science and technology moving forward in Northern Europe and stagnating in not just India and China but also in Spain in 1600-1900. One could arguably say and ask how is it that Spain became as poor as India and China by 1900-1950?  Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) says it is the insulated agricultural valleys of the Ganges and the Yangste river civilizations of India and China that are at fault. Yet one could say this for the Rhine, Danube or the other river based civilizations of Europe. It is primarily the advance of the Renaissance philosophy that opened up thinking in Europe and not in Asia, to ask questions about the world around us, to venture out, to test and experiment then invest capital where Asia and Europe moved apart.      ...

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The governor of the Punjab province during the Jallianwala massacre in Amritsar was an Irishman. Ireland was a troubled spot in Britain during the French revolutionary wars and France even attempted landings to liberate Ireland. Forward to 1900 and the Irish Easter rebellion leading to the Irish Free State in 1906. Read this article in the BBC for a nuanced understanding of history. As the writer an Irishman says Irish people following the European project called the European Union are now able to sit on equal terms with the British. Old conflicts are not uppermost even in the IRA that won the recent Irish election with its focus on economic issues.  This is good reading for anyone in Pakistan or India also as old conflicts can only be sustained for so long before economic, social and development issues such as education, healthcare and services take prominence in people's minds. It is also good reading in India as it looks at the British period in India, to realize that India now sits astride the Indian Ocean. What Britain accomplished in the eighteenth and nineteenth century with its  Royal Navy is now the task of the Indian Navy in alliance with the American Navy, and the Australian Navy on the world's seas. Indians like Irishmen can sit with the Americans or British on equal terms. ...

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A look at the Centennial celebrations in 1876, the 150th anniversary and the 200th anniversary in 1976, and now the 250th anniversary preparations in 2026 for American Independence.

No mention is made of the man who made all this possible- George Washington, with his humility, his leadership of the Continental Army in the difficult days ahead as the Nation fought its way through a long struggle with Britain. Britain used it's Navy at the time the most powerful in the world, it's economic power of the British Empire, and it's arms manufacturing power to defeat the Continental Army of the new nation. It was not until the decisive battle of Yorktown in 1781 in which George Washington surrounded the base of British troops stationed there that the war was won. For seven years George Washington persevered through many obstacles to win the war for future generations of Americans.

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The 65,000 tonne vessel aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth joins the British fleet at Portsmouth. Queen Elizabeth says at the opening ceremony- "she will in the years and decades ahead represent the country's resolve on the global stage."  The Queen has a special connection with the Royal Navy- "As the daughter, wife, and mother of naval officers I recognize the unique demands our nation asks of you. I will always value my special link with HMS Queen Elizabeth, her ship's company, and her families."

The ship is part of a carrier group that includes US Marine aircraft that is headed for the Indian Ocean and Japan for joint exercizes.

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US naval blockade of Iran in Arabian Sea starts April 13 2026. US destroyed Iran's larger ships 158 of them, yet Iran also has a fleet of smaller attack boats which it plans to use in Hormuz. These are harder to detect and can be hidden in coves along the Iranian coast and used against ships. The US with its naval blockade is now prepared to do what it has done also in Venezuela, stop and interdict fast drug boats on the Venezuelan side in the Atlantic ocean. By blockading Venezuela in the ocean US is using its strengths, and stopping drug boats its ability to pinpoint traffic on the ocean. Similar capabilities are well suited to Arabian Sea and Red Sea on the open oceans and away from narrow Hormuz playing to US strengths and capabilities. Aircraft carriers and destroyers and the US Air Force is in a position to do what it does best control open seas like the British did in their heyday of the Royal Navy for most of 1750-1920. This avoids options of Hormuz itself with its narrow 15 mile gap of water between Oman and Iran too close to mountainous terrain on either side, and of the Kharg Island option which would require special forces to be backed up with more ground forces. This is the most viable option and the interlude of couple of weeks has given the president an opportunity to make a better choice for positioning the US forces where the US has its strongest points. What is lacking is the individual powers of Britain and France whose leaders Starmer and Macron have popularity below 20%. Yet the US is better off making good choices and not having these nations alongside. The posturing by European nations is limited to France and UK, as Germany and Italy are in sync with the US position. Much of the media operates as if the goal of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to the Middle East is not important for long term peace for nations such as China and India with about 3 billion people and the billions of people of Asia, Latin America and Africa. For the first time in 400 years since 1600 as Asian civilizations began a long decline China and India have emerged in 2000-2030 into the kind of modern economies and societies that exist in Europe and the US. The last thing they need is the risk of destroying the Modern World with nuclear proliferation when it took centuries to get to the right opportunity after 1950 to modernize China and India. Xi's and Modi's generation are the first to experience modernization in Asia after Japan's experience. ...

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US antiship missiles Nmesis are placed in the Philippines islands to protect parts of the Pacific region in 2025. During the period of US engaged in wars in the Middle East under Bush and then Obama, the US Navy lost time and China built up its Navy. The lack of foresight of US business and focus on profits of firms like Apple shipping manufacturing to China meant loss of the manufacturing knowhow as other companies followed Apple for 2 decades. The result is that it takes long lead times for the US to build the ships the US Navy needs, a repeat of the situation the US faced with Japan by 1935 when the US was focused on tackling the Great Depression under FDR. At that time at a Naval Conference in London in 1934 the Japanese walked out rejecting the Washington Naval Agreement of 1924-25 that limited Japan to 60% of the US and British Navies ships tonnage. By 1941 the Japanese Navy was its main reason for its efforts to control Asia. FDR who had been Secretary of the Navy was not far behind so that America launched its own efforts in 1937- in an 18 month period 1942-1943 the US destroyed the Japanese Navy and protected China, India, from the worst Japanese Kwantung army elements that ran the government leading to 14 million lives lost in China. ...

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This article in the WSJ remembers Prince Philip for his remarkable service during World War II, coming from a generation that sees the British struggle against Germany in World War II in almost mythological terms. Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth navigated both that period and the transition of the British Empire into free nations in Asia and Africa. The significance of this achievement is understated in America. It can only be fully appreciated in the nations of the British Commonwealth, for no other colonial nation has been able to make that kind of transition, not the Dutch in Indonesia, not the French in Algeria without war. Another significant achievement of that period was the sense of duty that pervaded Britain not only for this generation in Britain, but the generations that preceded it going back to the conflict with Napoleonic France and the British Navy under Admiral Horatio Nelson. It is forgotten that much of the sense of duty to country and the people, and one's fellow citizens, helped Britain prevail against Napoleonic France in the period around 1800. This shaped Britain and Prince Philip, and is also part of what India and other free nations in Asia and Africa can learn from. It is also what makes Global Britain not just a slogan but a way to bring together a partnership with UK, US, Australia, and India, the largest democracies with a common history. ...

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The propaganda war taking place in Russia and China, and anti-western sentiment promoted on Chinese social media Weibo with the linking of Ukraine with the issues China faces in Taiwan. A kind of Monroe doctrine thinking that prevails about legitimate spheres of influence of Russia and China. Under the Monroe doctrine the US considered South America its sphere of influence during the administration of US president Monroe in the 19th century when such thinking about spheres of influence prevailed. A closer look shows that this was a policy against restoring Spanish or French colonization of newly independent nations in South America such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Mexico. It was put forth in an annual message to Congress in 1823 by president Monroe.  It had the support of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, founding fathers of America. Originally it was intended to be a joint British-American declaration by Canning and Monroe. In this sense even the superficial notion of America supporting such spheres of influence is based on protecting liberty of nations that suffered colonization such as Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Argentina and gained independence from Spain. Around 1823 when it was stated it was the British Navy that prevented any recolonization by Spain or France. Under president Theodore Roosevelt it was used to keep European powers from invading Venezuela in 1903 to enforce the payment of debts Venezuela had with European countries. ...

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Making some territorial concessions appears to be the only way for peace talks to succeed. For a long time there was insistence on territorial sovereignty of Ukraine by EU and NATO leaders. This appears to have prolonged the war- with needless loss of life on both sides, and costly damage to Ukraine infrastructure, a population that had to face additional winters and hardship in war ravaged areas. NATO's Stoltenberg from Norway, leaders of northern Nordic and Baltic countries, the UK, could take that position without having to face the hardship of the war. NATO had to be re-formed under a new name and new structure  following the collapse of the Soviet Union, with wariness about the possibility of centuries old since 1700 UK and Nordic historical adversarial relationship with Russia casting a shadow over that organization, and embroiling the US in conflicts not of its own choice or of wise leadership. This is the root cause of the Ukraine war. It would have been best to completely restructure NATO and give it a new name without Northern European nations leading it. Principles matter once soviet communism was no longer there NATO formed for its expansionism in 1950's had served it's purpose. Rasmussen from Denmark and Stoltenberg from Norway led the organization for the last decade and half from 2009-2014 and 2014 to 2025, with backing from Obama/Merkel for most of the period of the war in Ukraine. Also most of the period NATO expanded to Russian borders happened under Northern European leaders from Spain, Britain and Nordics (Solana, Robertson, Scheffer, Rasmussen and Stoltenberg) and the organization NATO getting the northern European slant based on historical adversarial relationship of Britain and Russia since 1700- for no other reason than the British wanting to protect its large Empire and commerce in India which in the 18th and 19th century included most of Asia. Under Robertson the UK Defense Secretary much of this transformation into turning NATO into something anti-Russian happened which was primarily because of British and Nordic perceptions of Russia as an adversary. Robertson added the following countries at the Prague Summit in 2002 to NATO- the Baltics, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Russia faced internal upheaval in those years and Yeltsin in resigned in 1999, Putin was elected in 2000. It is clear that Russia had suffered severe economic hardship in that period and Putin's first goal in 2002 was to stabilize the economy.  It could be said that this turning NATO over to UK and Nordics was a huge mistake considering that Russia was still the largest nuclear power after the US, and British policy was now determining US policy. And Britain's Robertson/NATO should not have involved itself in the Afghanistan war using Article 5, as the US could have handled this alone and limited that engagement. It got US involved in another conflict, conflict with Russia that was to come in Ukraine on the side of the Baltics and Ukraine, without US clearly understanding what the roots of that war was about and implied confrontation with Russia 20 years after the Prague Summit in 2002 under George Bush junior. The incompetence of Bush and Obama/Merkel laid the seeds of the Ukraine war in 2022 following Robertson, Rasmussen, Stoltenberg, small Nordic nations and Britain creating a conflict that did not need to happen, with loss of hundreds of thousands of lives of Russian speaking fraternal peoples of both Russia and Ukraine. The Republican sentiment under DJT of the tragedy of such huge losses of young people, and desire to end this loss of life, can nowhere be seen in bellicose talk in northern European nations, that take the US for granted to fight their wars.  The wisdom of Washington, Lincoln and TR/FDR clearly caution in getting involved in European centuries old animosities. For the US it meant in practical terms that it could no longer carry out the Monroe Doctrine essential for peace and good governance in the western hemisphere as only a Russia desperate to make its views known about NATO would interfere in the western hemisphere against US assertion of the Monroe Doctrine with the US Navy. Instead drug trafficking gangs took over Latin American countries and created a flow of fentanyl and millions of people through migrant traffickers across the US southern border. As America has expressed its concern for loss of Russian and Ukrainian men in the war for the first time under DJT Russia has distanced itself from Venezuela, Mexico and Latin America. The loss of hundreds of thousands of young Americans to fentanyl is a shared tragedy with the loss of hundreds of thousands of young Russians and Ukrainians in the last decade. How reliable are Northern European countries when it comes to protecting the eastern seaboard of the US with the acquisition of Greenland? It is a policy pursued by presidents since the Alaska Acquisition from Russia. By Seward, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman and DJT. Denmark the land where NATO secretary general Rasmussen was from followed by Stoltenberg from Norway  (for 15 of the years of the war in Ukraine 2010-2025) the US efforts to protect its eastern seaboard are rebuffed by both Denmark and Norway, and the US presented in a negative light as an imperialist power in the face of Danish East India Company's  colonial attitude since 1700 clearly imitating the colonial British East India company.  It shows Northern European nations looking out for themselves not for the US, and embroiling the US in their wars at the cost of the entire western hemisphere being destabilized. The population of UK, Denmark and Norway, Baltics is far less than the Mumbai, Shanghai, Sao Paulo , Berlin and Tokyo regions. Should the views of a small population in northern Europe of 2% of the total determine the future of US, Europe, China, India, Brazil, and other parts of the world with 5 billion people the 98%, when issues of war and nuclear conflict, nuclear buildup, the western hemisphere destabilized with drug trafficking gangs running rampant in countries, divide the world in opposing blocs, when the wellbeing of most of the world's people in Asia and Latin America, Africa is at stake by establishing a essential degree of cooperation by all sides. The US under DJT has chosen a wise policy of cooperation over conflict -with China, with Russia, with all the major powers, and with smaller powers. Reading the wisdom contained in the writings of Washington, Lincoln, TR/FDR confirms it is clearly the wise choice. ...

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Weiner calls Franklin the "Least Dead" of the Founding Fathers of America. "Least Dead" for whom? Of pop cultures, TikTok, Facebook, social media and the rest? Benjamin Franklin is one of the founding fathers who was most revered, and who with his diplomatic activity secured French support for George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the American cause in 1776. It was the French cannon, and the French Navy that made it possible for Washington to move his armies north and surround the British at Yorktown, Virginia ending the War of Independence. Weiner writes that Franklin is the most approachable one of the founding fathers, one you can talk with, one you would most likely want to have a beer with. Franklin is also the most interesting. Franklin's experiments with electricity are the earliest pioneering efforts of the scientific revolution of the 19th century that set Europe apart from Asia, and the scientific revolution of the 20th century that set America apart from the rest of the world. Franklin is not just a founding father, he is the founder of the US Post Office which was the radio and internet of its period making communication possible over long distances. Franklin was the first Postmaster General in 1775 and set up the US postal system. Franklin set up the first circulating library in 1731 and the University of Pennsylvania- the first fire department in Philadelphia. He was president of the state of Pennsylvania after Independence. There is a great deal of ignorance about the founding fathers no less in places like the entrance to the Smithsonian institution in Washington DC of all places, where no mention is made of Franklin as an Abolitionist, quite the reverse- Franklin's scientific mind and his modern thinking had no place for the European institution of slavery in the 1500-1800 period. Franklin was the president of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. Eric Weiner, is author of  "Ben and Me- In Search of a Founder's Formula for a Long and Useful Life." This is the second article in a series by NYT on America's 250th Anniversary for the Declaration of Independence. Weiner travels from Boston to London, and from Philadelphia to Paris along the sea route taken by Franklin to the Brittany coast in December 1776 with his 2 grandchildren, one of 7 voyages crossing the Atlantic. By 1781 Franklin had his first meeting with French King Louis XVI at Versailles. The US Mission and Franklin's home was located in the hillside village of Passy a few hours from Paris, where the clean country air and water helped revive him. He crosses the Atlantic again in 1783 when the Peace Treaty is signed by Franklin. Weiner is 70 in 2026 and writes that Franklin grew more serene with age even with some ailments, was loved in France, and returned to America for his final voyage home with his 2 grand children in 1785. A life well lived something for all Americans to aspire and emulate, and loved by his country. ...

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INS Vikrant, India's new aircraft carrier reflects the move to build in India, under Atman Nirbhar Bharat. It is Indian designed and made from Indian steel and technology. Indian Navy's ensign is only now being changed from the St. George's Cross to the seal of Shivaji, who fought invasions of the British and from Afghanistan. Shivaji built the Indian fleet to protect the coastline of western India from the British and from Afghan origin navies in the region. Vikrant aircraft carrier now joins US, Japanese and Australian ships that are part of the Quad and the Indo-Pacific group of nations working to keep the seas open and uphold the rule of international law in navigation. China's coastline of 14,000 kms is not facing the key sea lanes and compares with the following for the Indo-Pacific group - India with 7500 kms, Japan with 30,000 kms, Australia with 25,000 kms, US with 20,000 kms. Indonesia which works with Quad is right on the sea lanes near Singapore with 54,000 kms coastline. With the coastline of New Zealand alone larger than that of China there is a coastline of over 150,000 kilometres or about 100,000 miles for the US, Australian, Japanese and Indian navies to protect. The US has 7 aircraft carriers in its Pacific Fleet to do this- they are the Nimitz, Carl Vinson, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John Stennis, Ronald Reagan. ...

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What was it like to be an American in those days? Sense of duty and a fighting spirit. Col. Dave Severance was commander of the Marines that landed on Iwo Jima, the 7 mile long volcanic island 660 miles south of Japan, on Feb. 19, 1945. The picture of marines raising the flag on the top of Suribachi mountain was taken as Marines battled entrenched Japanese troops. James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy, was on the beach below, says this report in NYT, as Severance passes away at age 102 in La Jolla, California.   This picture has become a classic of American resolve and spirit since then. It is also about humility with what Queen Elizabeth calls "self-discipline and quiet good humored resolve" of the British and by extension Americans.  When asked about the photo and his role in Iwo Jima immortalized in John Wayne's role in The Sands of Iwo Jima, Severance said- "I never thought about it. Just that I was a Marine for 30 years and I never ended up in jail." ...

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George Washington is cited for his emphasis on preparedness and preparation for conflict as critical to preserve peace, or to defend America's role in the world as the first Republic based on a simple idea in the Declaration of Independence. Much of the war with Britain in the late1770's depended on the careful and many years of preparation done by Washington. Washington's diaries tell the story day by day of the preparations over years and the final months that won the war at Yorktown in 1781 that no one not the British were aware of- the logistics of moving the army from the south to the north, of equipment and training.  Roger Wicker, leading Republican on Senate Armed Services Committee has a plan- add $55 billion for defense in 2025, Add 357 ships for Navy and 340 fighters for Air Force by 2035. Do the $180 billion backlog for maintenance of the defense forces. Raise the military spending from 2.9% to 5% over 5-7 years as a parallel effort to investing in infrastructure and manufacturing at home. ...

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This BBC Travel story about mindfulness, a sort of meditation with nature, and getting close to nature as a sort of healing inside, comes from the southern region of Western Australia, 360 kilometres southeast of Perth. It could have come from native peoples in America, Asia, Africa or other parts of the world. The author visits the Noorang people, part of the 750,000 native people who lived there when the first British settlers arrived there in 1788. Captain Cook had just landed there in 1770 as part of British Navy and Royal Society expedition on the ship HMS Endeavour. Today this is part of the Botany Bay National Park in the Sydney region of eastern Australia. The author visits the streams rivers and hills in the region near Perth as he undergoes a kind of spiritual reconnection with nature. The less the vibration man has the more the mindfulness and ability to connect with nature and the inner self, the author is shown as he lets things go soaking himself in a river. Many native people's rituals and are ways to respect nature and connect to it as to a mother.  In India modern people relate to ancient civilization through yoga and spiritual writings from an earlier period. There too the idea of nature or rivers and mountains as spiritual and healing, strengthening of body and spirit can be seen. The Narmada river flowing from east to west across mountain ranges in India is seen as a spiritual  mother just as rivers are in this story about native peoples in Australia's southern region south of Perth, western Australia. ...

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Amanda Lacaze of Australian rare earths maker Lynas- what can be learned from her experience in rare earths? Lynas is a Australian mining company with a mine in an eroded volcano Mount Weld that has a concentration of rare earths metals. In 2014 it was faced with China's near monopoly of rare earths and price subsidies, lack of awareness in financial markets and the government about the importance of rare earths in manufacturing. It was a period under the Obama administration that after the Bush administration had little grasp of the importance of manufacturing in America and how its decline would affect communities across the Nation, economists trumpeted the virtue of free markets without grasping how China would wrestle control of manufacturing with state subsidies and aggressive pricing and of strategic new technologies.  This included rare earths where the monopoly was close to 100%- if it is 90% today it is because of companies like Lynas. Production processes at Lynas's plant in Malaysia were not sufficiently developed in 2014. When Amanda Lacaze (now 66 years and head of Australia's Minerals Agency) joined Lynas in 2014 the first problem aside from getting Japanese creditors to restructure loans because of aggressive pricing by Chinese firms was to improve manufacturing processes to get 95% quality instead of 48% quality (measured in number of quality rejected product). This was achieved in the first year. To do this she thinned her management ranks and closed offices in Sydney (to cut costs) and moved management to Malaysia where the problems in manufacturing processes would make or break the company. She was able to get creditor Japanese government backed Japan Australia Rare Earths financial institution to renew and extend loans. Had this not happened the company may not exist today. It shows the sheer foolishness that pervaded most of the American industry at that time, the failed economic theory that said America could not support its industry when rivals were supporting theirs, the Bush and Obama administrations that had no understanding of how the industrial competition was takin place in world trade that could substitute other nations for America' s dominance in manufacturing and did little to push back and regain the position for America in world trade. This ignorance continues in some sections of business today that cannot see the plain facts and refuses to see the enormous damage to the Nation from the destruction of its manufacturing base and loss of good jobs in communities across the US. Lynas is now getting contracts from the US government for rare earths and is the only reason China's dominance in rare earths in 90% and not 100% along with MP Materials of the US. Planning was discredited in the crazy euphoria that turned the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Communist Soviet Union, as economists never understood that planning that was used by the Soviets and Chinese in their Five Yer Plans is just borrowed from centuries of basic ways of conducting business that had originated with the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Without planning the growth of the British Navy and the industry that supported it Britain could never have gained the dominance that it did in the 19th century Industrial Revolution. As the Industrial Revolution spread in the US in the 19th and twentieth century every major company had a 1 year Operating plan and a Long Range Plan for 5 Years and 10 Years. The government would have identified rare earths with foresight as one of the newer technologies and the manufacturing infrastructure needed to support its development if these plans were developed at the different levels of government and at the highest levels. This was done under market economy in China. Instead DJT was forced to step back from trade negotiations with China for unfair trade when China held out with a threat to stop export of rare earths materials in 2025, because a huge hole or gap in planning happened at the highest levels of the US government. That happened 11 years after 2014 when Australian rare earths maker Lynas survival was in doubt under a new CEO Amanda Lacaze. This is only one of many misses in American manufacturing and industry, in world trade, that came from misguided economic theory and failure to grasp the basic facts behind the success of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the US. ...

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Tony Hall, who joined the BBC in 1973, worked there for 28 years, heading the News Section from 1996 to 2001, was selected to head the BBC. His selection comes after the recent ethics problems at the BBC. The BBC is a major British institution with a 90 year history of providing news on world affairs. It reaches an estimated 240 million people worldwide. His selection was well received in Britain, with the host of the TV show Question Time saying hearing the announcement felt similiar to what it would have sounded to men in the Royal Navy when they heard that Winston Churchill was back.

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DW.com looks at the Dutch elections on March 15, 2017, with an increase in support for right wing anti immigration parties. A look at a combination of polls put together by DW.com shows Wilders right wing anti-immigration party having about 15% support, the Freedom and Democracy Party of prime minister Rutte having 16%, and the Labor Party coalition partner having about 9%. The Dutch party system has about 5 parties each having about 10% of the vote including a Green centre left party, and parties with special interest causes. None of the other parties is expected to join Wilders anti-immigration Freedom Party to allow it to form a government, leading to a coalition between a number of parties in parliament or inconclusive result. Wilders still will have moved the debate in the Netherlands towards emphasizing Dutch identity. Dutch prime minister Rutte has called for immigrants not accepting or merging into Dutch culture to leave. A current exhibit at the Rijke National Museum in Amsterdam on the Afrkaaner story in South Africa gives some indication of how Dutch people now view the importance of their identity- scribbled on the walls as part of the exhibit were the large letters "I am Afrikaaner" and the exhibit showed a life size Dutch girl in the Hague wearing a dress in 1904 during the Boer War with a ribbon remembering Afrikaaners interned in British concentration camps. The tone of the exhibit was to show pride in Dutch identity, with a Gallery of Honor for Dutch heroes in the 17th century golden age of Dutch explorers and navy. Even though Netherlands is not expected to leave the EU the new government will likely show a shift towards Dutch identity within EU. ...